Saturday, August 29, 2009

It occurred to me recently (maybe a month ago now, I've been neglecting the blog) that the song Paralyzer by Finger Eleven sounds a little like Trampled Under Foot by Led Zeppelin. It also occured to me that I couldn't be the only one to have noticed this. I was a little disappointed that it took me so long to notice it. Maybe I just hadn't paid that much attention, maybe I forgot about the Led Zep song, maybe, maybe not. Anyway, I decided that someone somewhere would have posted something about it. So, I googled it. Turns out the band have realised this similarity and morphed Paralyzer into Trampled Under Foot in concert. They threw in some other similar sounding songs too. Seeing the video got me thinking about Finger Eleven's former incarnation Rainbow Butt Monkeys. Every time I saw them play (before they got their record deal) they would play parts of cover songs during their set. After taking what my friends and I felt was an unreasonable amount of time retuning or whatnot they would start playing a cover. Just as the crowd was getting in to it they'd stop and play one of their songs. This was one of the many reasons my friends and I did not like the Rainbow Butt Monkeys. We still went to see them many times though. That's what happens when there's a show at the Legion and you like 4 of the 10 bands, or whatever. So, this was the typical Butt Monkey show: play a song, pause for a while, play a teaser amount of a cover, pause, play another song, etc. Every show. Except one....

Once, in the basement of this church they played a real cover. Still not the whole song but not one of their teaser/tuning up numbers they usually pulled. One guitarist started playing Back In Black, the band joined in, they kept going. They kept on going. The crowd egged Scott Anderson on and he stared singing the song! He kept on singing it, the band made it through a couple of choruses and then it fell apart like a cheap lawn chair. Yes it fell apart but it was fantastic. It was the only cover (excluding Shamrocks and Shenanigans) that I ever heard from them, until I found that video. Well done.